


Swapped

by angstbot



Series: Swapped [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstbot/pseuds/angstbot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina and Hook get body-swapped, leading to interesting revelations all around.</p><p>Assumes knowledge of 3x17.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Captain Swan in this is entirely one-sided. If CS is your jam, this isn’t your story.
> 
> I know I’m supposed to be finishing The Truth Always. I’ll have it very soon. But I wanted to get this thing rolling before they do whatever they’re going to do in 3x19. This'll be fairly short, though, probably only 2 or 3 chapters.

When Hook figured out the loophole in the witch’s threat and told Regina, Emma was mildly impressed by his ingenuity. Of course, the feeling evaporated quickly when he leered at her afterwards as if he expected some sort of reward for basic human decency.

As part of Emma’s ongoing magical training, Regina insisted that she help in the effort to remove the curse from the pirate’s lips.

“It’s not like I’m going to kiss him,” the blonde complained. “No offense, Killian,” she added, “but this trap seems pretty easy to avoid.”

“He might stumble and fall onto your face,” Regina said brusquely. “He might suffer a severe lapse in judgment and kiss you without your consent. Again,” she noted, curling her lip in disgust. Emma recalled that the queen had been quite unimpressed hearing her recount Hook’s first attempt at jogging her memory. “You wouldn’t leave a loaded gun lying around,” Regina went on. “Ultimately, this is the same. We remove the curse.” Her tone brooked no contradiction.

And so it came to be that Regina was holding Hook’s shoulder steady with one hand and making a weird twisting-pulling gesture over his face with the other. His mouth had begun to glow green, and at her gesture the magical field stretched toward her, but it kept snapping back, making him flinch.

“Don’t be a baby,” the queen said sharply. “This can’t possibly hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt, love, but it does feel strange,” the pirate muttered.

After several minutes of this, Regina sighed. “This isn’t going to work. Zelena is more powerful than I am.”

“I can do it,” Emma offered.

Regina gave her one of her small, tight smiles. “While I _am_ glad that you are taking more of an interest in your latent magical talent, I'm fairly certain this curse will be specifically designed such that _you_ can’t remove it.”

“Hm,” Emma said, thinking for a minute. “What if I help? Like, be your magical battery or something?” she asked.

The older woman flicked an elegant eyebrow. “I suppose it can’t hurt. Come over here.” Once the blonde had stepped closer, Regina went on, “Put one hand over my heart, and the other over his. Yes, like that, flat. That will let you act as a conduit. Hopefully you can amplify the spell.” Meeting Emma’s eyes, she asked, “Are you ready?”

The savior tried to smile, but knew it came out mostly uncertain. “As I’ll ever be.”

Regina began the spell again, and Emma gasped as she felt the magic course through her. The queen pulled at the green glow again, once, twice, and on the third time it popped off, staying in her hand for just a second before she vanished it in a puff of purple smoke. Then, just as both Regina and Hook turned toward Emma, the savior felt a surge go through her and both of them were abruptly thrown backwards as if by a blast, leaving Emma stumbling but upright.

Looking back and forth between them for a split second, she went to kneel beside Regina, shaking her shoulder and calling her name. After a few seconds, the queen groaned and opened her eyes, blinking.

As the older woman regained her focus, Emma was startled to see bright brown eyes roll over her suggestively and her mouth quirk into a leer. “It _is_ safe to kiss me now, love.” Regina’s eyes went wide and her hand flew to her throat, then down to where her shirt gaped open, one too many buttons undone, sliding over the bare skin there. And then, Emma was dumbfounded to see, the queen cupped her own breast.

“Hands off, pirate,” she heard Hook growl behind her, and turned to see him standing there, hand on hip and gesturing with his hook, glaring exactly like-

“Regina?”

“Yes,” the queen answered shortly. “I don’t know what the hell happened.” She sighed. “Get up and over here so that we can trade back, Hook,” she commanded at the man still lying on the floor in her body and looking incredibly tempted to feel himself up. Grudgingly, he did as he was instructed, coming to stand where Regina had before.

The queen gestured to Emma to place her hands as she had previously, nearly cutting her with the hook in the process, then scowling at the pirate as if it was his doing.

The look of brainy concentration that crossed Killian’s face as Regina tried to call forth her magic was kind of hot, Emma realized. She’d never really been into the guy despite all his trying, but there was definitely _something_ about the sharp intelligence she was seeing right now that appealed to her.

And then- nothing happened.

Regina let out a frustrated huff. “This body is poorly attuned to magic. I can feel it there, but I can’t reach it. I’m going to need some time,” she concluded, stepping back.

“Can you at least tell me what happened?” Emma found the Irish lilt coming out of Regina’s mouth strangely charming. And the cocky smirk on his lips, which Regina wasn’t wearing as often lately as she had when they first met. Her attention drawn to it, she also found _Regina’s mouth_ strangely charming, contemplating the little scar and wondering why she never had before.

“We must have had a common mental state at that moment when Emma touched us,” Regina said, clearly exasperated. “Though what I could _possibly_ have been thinking in common with _you_ I have no idea.

Hook snorted, and _that_ wasn’t as elegant as Regina’s amusement usually was. “We have exactly one thing in common, Your Majesty.” He tipped his head slightly toward Emma, then looked pointedly below the queen’s belt. Glancing down, the blonde saw that he- _she_ was distinctly partially erect in Hook’s leather pants. Neither she nor Regina could look at each other for a moment after that, and the pirate laughed uproariously at the queen’s discomfiture.

“It’s okay, Regina,” Emma said finally, glaring at Killian to shut up. “You’re not used to that body’s responses.” Their eyes met, and when Regina smiled the savior realized forcefully that it was exactly the way that face looked at her when Hook was behind it. But on him it was affection and longing. Surely Regina-

“It seems as if we are trapped in these bodies for a short while,” the queen said abruptly, looking down at herself distastefully. “The last time I wore this much leather my cleavage looked a hell of a lot better,” she sneered. Turning to Hook, she added, “I’m pleased to learn that you bathe regularly.”

“Aye, lass. And I’m pleased to learn you go in for silky underthings,” he taunted back, rolling his hips a little as if to feel them slide against him.

And it was disgusting, and yet Emma felt her breath leave her in a rush imagining Regina in silky underthings.


	2. Chapter 2

Regina and Hook eventually agreed to lay low until they could resolve the situation. Emma drew on every bit of leadership ability she’d acquired in Neverland to coax and logic and strong-arm them into it, pointing out vigorously that they needed to stay out of sight since it turned out that neither of them could convincingly impersonate the other. The last thing _any_ of them needed was Zelena knowing what had happened.

“I hope you don’t expect me to-” Regina paused, turning to the pirate. “Where _are_ you living?”

“Granny’s,” Hook answered.

“No, absolutely not,” the queen insisted. “And you’re not sleeping in my bed even if you are in my body. In fact, I don’t want to sleep in my bed in _this_ body,” she went on, horrified as she looked down at herself again.

“Regina, it’s a big house. You have guest rooms, don’t you?” Emma wheedled, and it felt so strange to be using this soothing tone of voice to that body.

“Yes,” Regina conceded.

“Why don’t you both stay at your place?” When they both looked at her with horror, she added, “It’s not ideal, but there’s clearly not space _here._ Better that people think you two are-” and she paused, searching for the right word, “ _involved_ than that anyone see you acting strangely.” Why, she wondered, did it hurt to even _think_ of the two of them together?

She was spared further reflection when both of them burst out laughing.

“What?” she asked, genuinely confused.

Hook answered first. “ _Us_ , involved? That’s a good one, love.”

“The pirate is right. It’s absolutely absurd.”

“Well then, _there’_ s some common ground,” Emma snarked, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

**

They did bring Belle into their confidence for help with research, and together the librarian-cum-shopkeeper and the queen pored over the available arcane books for ways to both jumpstart Regina’s magic in the pirate’s body and reverse this little magical accident. For his part, Hook lounged around in Regina’s pajamas, having been forbidden to wear her skirts the very first time he sat down in one.

With each new lead they made another attempt. Emma showed up gamely every time to act as a magical signal boost, but left feeling unsettled, because she honestly didn’t know how to interact with _either_ of them anymore.

When Regina’s magic flickered into life on their second attempt and then sputtered weakly, she moved to comfort the older woman on instinct, gripping her arm like she always did. The trouble was, the queen wasn’t _in_ that body, and the pirate had stepped into her space and pressed full-length against her before she realized her error.

“What the fuck, Hook?” she sputtered, pushing him back, rather more gently than she would have in his own body.

He shrugged. “It seemed like you wanted to be more intimate with me, love.”

“It was _friendly_ ,” she hissed, still feeling the warmth where their bodies had touched and god- how was she tingly over _Hook?_ Or was it Regina? This was too much to deal with, and her legs were carrying her toward the door in an instant. “Call me when you're ready to try again,” she called over her shoulder, not even looking back.

**

She made the mistake of touching Hook as she would Regina only once, but each time she was around them she had to remind herself that the body she was drifting toward, just to be physically close and support her, wasn’t the queen but the pirate. It was only now that it had become complicated that she realized how much closeness with Regina had become a routine part of their interaction.

After the fourth or fifth attempt, with Regina now fully able to manifest magic but the goal of switching them back remaining stubbornly out of reach, the queen looked down at herself and muttered, “Chest waxing can’t be any more painful than a bikini wax, can it?”

Emma didn’t _want_ to think about Regina’s nether regions. She didn’t. But how could she not? Was this a regular practice? Did she go fully bare? Landing strip? Oh god, why couldn’t she stop pondering Regina’s-?

“Steady on, Your Majesty!” Hook exclaimed, interrupting the savior’s internal panic. “Leave my chest hair alone!”

“As it’s looking increasingly likely that we are trapped in these forms, I think it’s reasonable to start making contingency plans,” Regina snarled at him. “And those plans include depilation.”

Recognizing that the queen’s anger came from frustration and even fear, Emma rested a soothing hand on Regina’s newly-manly back, but even though the older woman leaned into it as she always did it just felt _wrong_. She knew Regina was in there, and it was a definite improvement on Hook taking any affection as an invitation to fuck, but dealing with Regina in Hook’s body wasn’t actually better.

Then Regina turned that look on her again, and as much as her first inclination had been to compare the facial expression the queen wore in Killian’s body to the one Hook had, in fact it _wasn’t_ the same. There was something more there, something deeper, an added warmth from the trust they’d built up over the time they’d known each other. Honestly, if Hook _had_ ever looked at her like that, she probably would have taken him to bed in a heartbeat. He was, after all, a plenty good looking guy. He just treated her like a piece of meat.

But why did they look alike at all? She knew Hook had a thing for her, but Regina couldn’t possibly. She was straight. _Regina_ was straight, with Graham and Daniel and- no, it-

“Clearly I’ll also have to acquire a new wardrobe,” the queen added. “Though I am _entirely_ glad that you have more than one of these, the all black shtick _is_ a bit emo, especially with the guyliner and the doe-y eyes.”

“Doe-y eyes? You’re one to talk!” the pirate shot back. “It’s a good thing Swan isn’t flammable, the way you look at her.”

“Jesus, you two, can you cool it? Hook, I’ve really had enough of this jealous shit from you. First Neal and now Regina?”

“ _I’m_ jealous? Have you _met_ Her Highness?”

Emma turned to look apologetically at Regina, only to find the queen frozen, like she’d been caught at something. Unbidden, a series of memories flashed through the savior’s mind. When Regina had called Hook “your boyfriend” in Neverland. When Henry had reported Regina’s seeming jealousy over Walsh and asked when they had dated. Every little flash of hurt or irritation that had ever crossed Regina’s face over Hook or Neal.

Oh. Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to lovesomepartsofme and stoneharts from Tumblr for helping me find the compilations of jealous!Regina I needed.
> 
> Thanks also to Tumblr peeps who gamely gave me positive reinforcement when I fished because I was stuck. Look, I am (possibly) unstuck! (knock on wood)
> 
> Probably one more plot chapter and then a smutty one.


	3. Chapter 3

They all stood there variously gaping and glaring at each other, only to be interrupted by the clearing of a throat. “I’ll just show myself out,” Belle muttered. Emma was embarrassed to realize they had all forgotten she was there.

“Thank you for your help, Belle,” Regina replied graciously, showing the poise under pressure that must have served her well as queen even as it sat uneasily on these particular shoulders. The bookish woman just gave a strained smile and made a hasty exit.

As soon as the door closed, Hook looked at both of them speculatively. “Now that Swan has caught up to the rest of the class, shall we get to it? Tell me you have one of those phalluses with straps, my dear muffer. I wouldn’t mind being on the receiving end of a little tipping the velvet, but I do draw the line at cock.”

“The fuck did you just say?” Emma demanded, sure it was awful but not exactly how.

“You don’t want to know,” Regina growled.

“No, I do. So I know how much to beat his ass when he gets his own body back.”

The queen sighed. “He’s proposing a threesome. He hopes I have a strap-on, which I believe he plans to use on you. He then referred to me as someone with love of performing oral sex on women, which he would be willing to experience, but not penetration. _With his own penis_ , I might add,” she sneered. “But there’s no risk of that.” She shuddered. “You may be in my body but you will never be _in_ my body.”

Turning back to Hook in horror, Emma saw him leering hopefully at her, and fuck- that kind of open desire on Regina’s face made her tingly despite the entirely disgusting way it had come to be so. Oh god, _she liked Regina being attracted to her_.

But, if everything that had come out into the open since their little magical accident was true, why hadn’t the queen ever looked at her like that in her own body? Well, in a less gross way.

And then Emma realized that she _had_ seen that expression before, always slipping off Regina’s face as soon as it came into a careful blankness. She hadn’t thought much of it because she wasn’t expecting it, because she’d never even considered Regina in that way. Yeah, the queen was clearly a highly sexual person. But she, like, used seduction as a _weapon_ and with _Graham_ and _Sidney_ , and-

“It isn’t just about sex,” Hook insisted, drawing her attention back to him as his face softened into that wistful longing again. “You know I love you. Just like Her Majesty.”

That was ridiculous. She and Regina cared for each other, of course, because Henry- but it was nothing like Hook’s infatuation, and-

The savior looked back and forth between the two of them, asymmetrically mirroring each other, Hook an open book behind Regina’s face and Regina probably only exposing herself now because she didn’t have the hang of her usual stoic poker face in Hook’s body, and she had an intuition.

“It’s me.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hook asked.

Stepping closer, Emma cupped their respective cheeks in each hand and when Hook’s eyes fluttered shut and Regina’s eyelids twitched as she forced herself to keep them open she was sure. “It's me. I’m the missing ingredient. You both have feelings for me.”

Seeing Regina about to protest, she raised an eyebrow at her. “You do, and don't deny it. This must have happened because you were both thinking about me in that way while I was linking you together. And because we haven’t recreated that part, we haven’t been able to fix it.”

Taking a deep breath, she went on, “This is going to sound really conceited, but let’s try it again with both of you concentrating on how you feel about me.” She met Hook’s eyes first, and as she expected he was easy to convince, nodding almost immediately.

Turning to the other side, her gaze locked with the queen’s for far longer, little flickers of terror and anger and hope chasing themselves across Killian’s face. Emma gave a small, soft smile realizing she could still read Regina, could still see the truth of her despite any effort to conceal it and regardless of the body she inhabited. “Trust me,” she murmured.

“Alright,” the queen said at last. They took up the position, and as Emma felt their hearts thudding discordantly under her hands she closed her eyes, trying to blank out her mind and not mess anything up by looking at or thinking of either of them at the expense of the other.

“Are we ready?” Regina asked. At their stereo noises of agreement she initiated the spell, and Emma felt the magic slam into her full-power, possibly even stronger than the first time. Magic really _was_ emotion.

A wave of disorientation hit the savior, and then she found herself blasted back onto the floor as well this time. Sitting up groggily, she looked at first one and then the other of them. “Did it work?”

“Aye, lass,” Hook answered, and she was so relieved to hear his voice coming out of his proper body that she forgave him being a pig.

“Oh thank god,” she breathed, struggling to her feet.

It was then that the weight of all the revelations hit her. She had felt something for Hook-Regina and she’d felt something for Regina-Hook, but what did it mean about them now that they were unscrambled? Was she attracted to Hook’s manly desire even though it was Regina’s body? Did Regina’s care only call to her because it came from Hook’s male body?

“I just have to be sure,” she muttered, walking over to Hook, grabbing him by the lapels, and pulling him in for a kiss again as she had in Neverland.

And- she felt absolutely nothing but scratchy man-face. When had she lost her tolerance for stubble? But it was clear that the flickers of attraction and care she’d felt toward this body weren’t about this body at all.

Turning to Regina, she saw the queen staring at them, pain flickering across her face. Realizing that just repeating the motion wasn’t an option, she walked toward her carefully like she was a wounded animal. “Can I?” she murmured, and Regina just looked at her for a long, long moment before she gave the tiniest possible nod.

Cupping the queen’s cheek with one hand, she leaned in slowly, giving the older woman a chance to change her mind and pull away. She didn’t, and the first contact of their lips was every cliche of fireworks and electricity that Emma had always found ridiculous. Fuck- Regina’s mouth was both soft and firmly insistent and before long the older woman’s tongue was flicking against her lip. Emma gladly opened to its caress, a hungry little noise pulled from her throat as the hand on the queen’s face moved to tangle in her hair and the other slid to her waist.

God damn the older woman was an amazing kisser, and the blonde was sliding her  hand down to the queen’s heartbreakingly perfect ass, pulling her closer, pressing them together thigh and belly and- _breast_. She was kissing a woman like this, all desire and desperation. She was kissing _Regina_ like this, and she suddenly was releasing the queen like she’d been burned.

“I need a drink,” she murmured, and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay people who said you wanted more more more, i had to swap them back because i couldn't stand writing Hook another minute. so, what did y'all want more more more OF: swappedness or Emma's realizations or something else entirely? this was supposed to be short and fun but it's teetering on the verge of being more substantial and about internalized homophobia and denial and your feedback will help me decide.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ending this without smut and lowering the rating to T because it was threatening to turn into another story entirely and because nothing in it is "worse" than would be in a PG-13 movie.

“Ms. Swan,” Regina greeted coolly as she picked up the phone. And it was so formal that Emma winced, but she deserved it.

“Can we talk?”

“I was under the impression that we are speaking right now.”

Yeah, the queen was pretty pissed at her if she was this precise and sharp and brittle. Emma sighed. “Can I come over? I shouldn’t have run out last night. I’d like to figure out where we stand?” She was embarrassed at how much pleading crept into that last sentence.

“Alright,” Regina allowed, sounding resigned.

**

“Hey,” Emma greeted as Regina opened the door to her.

“Hey,” the queen echoed back, and it was so much like Neverland that the blonde smiled despite herself.

After that greeting, Regina silently let her in and led her to the sterile, perfect sitting room and sat down across from her, waiting. Emma supposed it meant something that Regina hadn’t taken her to the warmly-lit study.

“So, um, I- I shouldn’t have run out last night.”

“So you said on the phone.” Returned to her own body, the queen was fully back in control of how much she let show, and she was giving away nothing.

“I just- I know it’s awful to kiss you and then run and I probably made you feel like shit.” Regina raised a noncommittal eyebrow. “I was feeling very confused by the- _feelings_ you and Hook brought up when you were, you know, mixed up, and I was trying to sort them out by kissing you both. Figure out who they were really about, you know?”

“Aren’t you a little old to be experimenting?” Regina wasn’t giving an inch.

“Don’t you want to know what I figured out?” Emma asked hopefully.

Regina looked at her unimpressed. “I think I can connect the dots given that kissing me more or less made you run screaming from the house.” And there, above the hard set of her jaw, was that uncertainty in her eyes, the fear of not being good enough to be loved that Emma had seen so many times in other circumstances.

“No, Regina how much I _liked_ kissing you made me run. ‘Cause, you know, I’m straight and it kinda freaked me out, okay?”

The older woman laughed, and Emma could see echoes of the evil queen she had been in the sheer condescension. “You know, I never understood that about this world. People here just _insist_ on naming and claiming and categorization.”

“And everyone was just sexually _enlightened_ in the Enchanted Forest, I take it,” Emma snarked defensively.

“Hardly. Most women did have sex with men, and vice versa, and when people didn’t follow that pattern there was disapproval. But it was just a decision you made about who to take to bed with you, not a- what do people call it here-” she wrinkled her nose as if the word tasted bad in her mouth, “lifestyle.”

Emma laughed at her expression. “That seems reasonable. I could go for just making a decision about who to kiss.” She paused, and the smile slid off her face. “But, I mean, it has taken us so long to learn to trust each other. I don’t want to throw that away just because you’re, like, a heart-stoppingly good kisser.”

That drew a smirk from the queen. “Thank you.” Emma flushed, realizing what she’d said, and opened her mouth to try to remove her foot from it, but Regina went on, “This may come as a surprise to you, but kisses and trust are not mutually exclusive.”

Their eyes met, caught, held. The intensity of their gaze sucked all the air out of the room, and time stood still, and Emma found herself falling into it, and a thousand other clichés she'd had always found ridiculous but now understood viscerally.

And then the doorbell rang. Emma was drawn along as Regina went to answer it, though she couldn’t have explained why.

"Pardon me, Your Majesty, but I seem to have forgotten-" Hook stopped cold as he spotted Emma leaning against the doorframe. "Swan."

She nodded at him. "Killian."

"I believe you needed something, Hook?" Regina asked, clearly unenthusiastic about having him in her foyer.

"Ah, yes, my apologies. I believe I left my hand here in all the excitement last night." He smirked. "I do prefer the hook, but versatility is a virtue." 

Regina gave him a tight, fake, polite smile. "Of course."  Clearly their time as each other had not brought them closer or even made them more able to tolerate each other. If only Emma could say she'd been equally unaffected. "I put it aside for you; I'll go get it"

And then Emma was alone with Hook for the first time since all of this had started. The silence seemed to stretch interminably but must really have been only a few seconds. "I'm happy for you," he said finally, though it sounded like it pained him. 

"What?"

"It seems that you and the queen have come to some sort of understanding. I hope that she makes you happy." And there was so much love for her on his face that her heart ached for him by proxy despite everything, but then she realized what he'd said.

"What- we're not-" They had only been talking about the past, the kiss, not any kind of future.

"Here," Regina said, rolling into the room with all the force of her considerable personality, holding out the black-gloved false hand to the pirate, and Emma just stared.

All of their connection, the slow building of trust, the real affection they had for each other--that hard-won relationship that she'd been considering just co-parenting and maybe-just-maybe friendship--maybe it wasn't all there was. Maybe it could be combined with the attraction she was only now realizing she had been denying from the get-go, with the way their eyes had always caressed each other and they'd always stood far too close and Regina's utterly fascinating inability to operate shirt buttons. 

Hook’s errand completed, there were some sort of departing pleasantries all around, and Emma hoped she was murmuring appropriately.

After Regina had shown Hook out, she turned back to the blonde, raising an eyebrow as she asked “Where were we?”

“You were telling me trust and kissing can go together and, um, I have this vague recollection from high school science class that you have to replicate an experiment before you can be sure of the results.” She smiled hopefully at the queen.

“If this is your way of asking to kiss me again, try a little harder. Given that you _ran_ the last time, you’ll need to convince me that you want it.”

“I want to see where kissing you might go. Because I know you. I can read you, even when you break out your poker face. My superpower works on you. I _see_ you. You are probably the emotionally strongest person I have ever met, and I so appreciate the way you don’t take any shit. You’re fucking brilliant, and I think your devious mind can probably be a very good time. And you are breathtakingly beautiful.”

“Careful, Miss Swan. Anyone would think you’ve been talking your way up women’s skirts for years.”

“Is that your way of telling me I’m talking my way up your skirt?”

“Why don’t you come over here and find out?”


End file.
